The clause specifies the number of hours that a young person must spend participating in guided learning, and defines the latter. I point the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings to subsection (3), which states that a person is in “actual guided learning” if they are

“being taught or given instruction by a lecturer, tutor, supervisor or other appropriate provider of training or education, or...otherwise participating in education or training under the immediate guidance or supervision of such a person, but does not include time spent on unsupervised preparation or study, whether at home or otherwise”.

We want such training to be accredited, because we want to ensure that it is useful. Some would argue that we could accredit any old thing. We must ensure that that is not the case and that accredited training helps people to get on and to improve their skill levels, rather than keep them where they are and give them certificates for the hell of it.

We have debated the importance of accrediting training undertaken by young people alongside employment. That training needs to be for a period sufficient to lead to an accredited qualification to help young people to make progress in their careers, adapt to changes in the labour market and provide skills demanded by employers and the economy. We regard 280 hours a year as the minimum time that a young person needs to achieve a further qualification by the time that they are 19. That equates to roughly a day a week over the course of a year, although the Bill does not prescribe that it must be delivered in that way. As ever, we want to be flexible. Participating for less than an average of a day a week would reduce a young person’s likelihood of achieving a worthwhile accredited qualification.

Without clause 8 there would be no minimum participation requirement for those young people undertaking part-time training alongside employment. It also provides the definition of guided learning, which I read out, and which is also needed for clause 5 to clarify the type of learning in which young people must participate alongside employment to fulfil their duty under clause 2. Without clause 8 we could not ensure that young people access appropriate learning for the amount of time necessary to gain an accredited qualification.

That provision will not normally apply to apprenticeships, because they are normally full-time. To reassure the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings, programme-led apprenticeships will not count towards the target of expanding apprenticeships that we announced. A person will be counted only after he or she has a contract of employment. Programme-led apprenticeships will be a useful pre-entry route for some young people. The 90,000 extra apprenticeships that we want to develop as we bring in this duty must involve a contract of employment.